Scotland has proclaimed Sept. 9 to 16 as Nova Scotia Week, a provincial government news release said Thursday.

Nova Scotia’s links with Scotland go back almost 400 years, the release said, when Sir William Alexander played a role in the start of European migration to the province. Alexander is commemorated with a statue in Halifax’s Victoria Park.

“It’s especially fitting in Scotland’s International Year of Homecoming to recognize the strong historic, linguistic, and cultural links Nova Scotia shares with that country,” Premier Darrell Dexter said in the release.